Improvement in the manufacture of gunpowder



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

LAMMOT DU PONT AND EUGINE DU PONT, OF NEW CASTLE COUNTY, DEL.

IMPROVEMENT IN THE MANUFACTURE OF GUNPOWDER.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 133,522, dated December3, 1872.

To all whom it may concern:

Beit known that we, LAME/[0T DU PONT and EUGINE DU Pom, both of NewCastle county, in the State of Delaware, have invented certain new anduseful Improvements in the Manufacture of Gunpowder; and that thefollowing is a full, clear, and exact description of the same.

The common way of manufacturing gunpowder is first to weigh out theproper proportions of the ingredients, pulverize them, mix, andincorporate them with a small percentage of water. This moist powder isthen spread on plates in layers and submitted to pressure, whichcompresses it into cakes. These cakes are broken up by passingthemthrough between rollers into irregular grains or pieces, varying inshape and size from the coarsest to the finest dust. This broken powderis then assorted into diflerent sizes by sifting it through sieves ofdifferent mesh, making irregularshaped grains, as no two are of' exactlythe same shape. This powder so made answers for many purposes; but forlarge cannon the irregularities of the grains produce irregular results.To avoid this irregularity is the purpose and object of our invention,

are of varying density, so that more is lost in this irregularity ofdensity than is gained by uniformity of size of the grains.

Our invention consists in the compression of the grains in sheets, whichare afterward broken up into pieces, by which means we attain uniformityof density and comparatively great regularity of size.

In making our powder we proceed in the same way as hereinabove stated asthe usual way of making powder, up to the moistenin g of the powder. Thedamp or moistened powder we place between plates which have ribs raisedupon them, which embed themselves by the pressure into the cakes, andcause the cakes to break in the weakest lines of fracture, making thewhole of the cake into grains of uniform shapes, and all of which havebeen subjected to uniform pressure, and are of regular density. Of theseshapes or forms we prefer those whose horizontal sections are of eithera square or hexagon shape, but do not limit our invention to either ofthese forms.

Having thus fully described our invention, what we claim therein as new,and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is-

Gompressing dampened powder in sheets between ribbed plates or othermechanical equivalent, for forming indented lines, by which the cake isbroken up into uniform shapes or sizes, substantially as and for thepurpose described.

LAMMOT DU PONT. EUGINE DU PONT.

Witnesses Iemrws G. GRUBB, Vrc'ron DESHER.

